Permaculture solutions: Biodiversity

BeeKeeper Davey, TheGrowingHome.net

Suggestions on mulching remind me that a longer-term solution is to encourage biodiversity.
  
The wider the range of all kinds of insects one has living and dying in a garden or farm, the more likely there will be a dynamic balance of beneficials and non-beneficials.

Plant insect varieties choose edibles and ornamentals. Let some of the edibles go to seed. And plant trap crops, such as milkweed for aphids. Johanna Campos of the Armory Art Center's  demonstration garden knows about this kind of approach. We went through The Huntington's Urban Ecosystem Agriculture course together.

   

Classmates and I have begun writing about it at Urban-Ecosystem-Agriculture, Leonardo's site LiveEarthSystems.com, and Kathleen wrote about it at Pathway to the Garden.

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Going to the Beach in SoCal (video)

Molly Peterson and Scott Sterling (Pacific Swell, KPCC, SCPR.org)

Waves of the US Pacific extend from Hawaii to the west coast of the mainland (loltops.org)

  

The Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission is the lead agency running lagoon restoration.

  

It’s an independent state agency, funded in part by a nonprofit foundation. Members of the commission are appointed from local government and environmental groups.
   

(LINK) Saving the Santa Monica Bay starts on land in Los Angeles County

  

The lagoon sits on land managed by the California State Parks system. One interesting thing is that the state parks website seems to show awareness of the fact that there is opposition: it lists the mainstream environmental groups and people that back it.

  

Commission staffers, the people who work there, are scientists and, in the most neutral sense of the word, bureaucrats. What I mean by that word is that they believe in the process. And over a period of several years, they say, they’ve gone through a lengthy one. Along the way, the public has participated, and regulators and scientists have cast scrutiny on the plans. More

• "Star Wars" characters sell plug-in Prius in Japan
  
• Green party: Happy World Environment Day 2012!
  
• Coastal cities consider backing away from the beach
  
• Court ruling restricts gold mining in the West
  
• Malibu Lagoon supporters anticipate restoration work

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